In Scott Adams’ How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, the Dilbert creator talks about his doomed ventures, including two shuttered restaurants and an attempt to market “a rosin bag used by tennis players to keep their hands dry.” Reviewing the book, Vikram Bath entertains the possibility that a touch of overconfidence is a prerequisite for success:
Adams has an irrational optimism that nevertheless makes him better off. … Yes, a strict rationalist might start 10 companies each with only a 20-percent probability of success but promising a 10x return on investment. But most of us can’t put our hearts into something day after day if we think it only has a 20-percent chance of success. Even criminals seem to behave according to how likely they think it is that they will get caught rather than how severe the consequences would be to getting caught [pdf].
If this is the case, maybe irrational optimism is the only way to success. Maybe you have to rely on your brain twisting that 20 percent into a 70 percent so that you can get to work in the morning and give it your full effort. How else can you put your heart into a velcro bag that might someday be something bigger?
Previous Dish on rationality and cognitive bias here.
The Dish 